‘Bogus discounts’ in the spotlight as ACCC takes Woolies to court<\/a><\/p>\nThe sequel to Australia’s supermarket pricing wars is about to kick off in the Federal Court as the ACCC takes on Woolworths over what it argues are misleading pricing practices.<\/p>\n
The ACCC claimed Woolworths shoppers were not receiving genuine discounts on hundreds of items.<\/p>\n
Michael Hodge KC, who is representing the consumer watchdog, said the 266 products in question contravened internal Woolworths guidelines known as guardrails.<\/p>\n
“If these guardrails, as they existed in 2020, had been applied in relation to the products that we’re concerned with, then all of them would have contravened the price-establishment period guideline,” he said.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/8d3ff53133c4afa144e18b7af22b7288.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Michael Hodge KC is representing ACCC in its case against Woolworths. (ABC News: Billy Cooper)<\/p>\n
The price establishment guideline is the length of time a product should remain on a price before being reduced.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday afternoon, Woolworths challenged the ACCC\u2019s interpretation of its guardrails and its alleged non-compliance with it. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Woolworths\u00a0lead counsel Robert\u00a0Yezerski\u00a0SC said internal guidelines confirmed it had a compliance program that showed it took the law seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Woolworths\u00a0reads and\u00a0takes seriously ACCC guidance,” Mr Yezerski said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The ‘power’ of the promotion<\/p>\n
Mr Hodge argued the “power” of the “Prices Dropped” marketing message was that it conveyed to a shopper that Woolworths had “done something remarkable or unusual”.<\/p>\n
“It has dropped the regular shelf price,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The subtle magic of the prices dropped message, that draws the consumer in, is \u2026 that the new stable price is lower than the old stable price,” he said.<\/p>\n
He used the example of the Oreo Family Pack Original ticket, which showed the product at the price of $5 on December 19, 2022, then dropped to $4.50.<\/p>\n
He explained from January 2021 to the end of November 2022, the item was being sold at less than $4.<\/p>\n
“Then there’s a brief period of a few weeks when the product goes up to $5, and then after a few weeks the price drops back down to $4.50, and is now described as Prices Dropped,” he told the court.<\/p>\n
He argued consumers would form the view that based on the price history of the product “that the ticket was misleading or false”.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/052f8631a541c19963a4fad43deda50d.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The price of the Oreo Family Pack spiked to $5.00 for 22 days before Woolworths put it on a “Prices Dropped” price of $4.50. (Supplied: ACCC)<\/p>\n
There was also a lot of back and forth between Mr Hodge and Justice Michael O’Bryan about what an average consumer would think about when they saw the “Prices Dropped” tickets.<\/p>\n
Justice O’Bryan suggested “consumers wouldn’t over-intellectualise these tickets at all”.<\/p>\n
“They wouldn’t be thinking in the terms that you put to me in the first few minutes of this opening session, but at a much more general level \u2026 that what was flagged on that ticket was some kind of genuine discount,” he said.<\/p>\n
Justice O’Bryan said Mr Hodge would have to persuade him that in the “10 seconds” a consumer decided to buy a product after seeing the Prices Dropped signage, that they were thinking more than, “Woolworths is telling me that there is a real and genuine discount from that price to that price”.<\/p>\n
“Perhaps Mr Hodges, when you’re shopping in Woolworths there might be more analysis going on,” he laughed.<\/p>\n
“But I suspect for most consumers it doesn’t go much beyond that.”<\/p>\n
Woolworths ‘largely removed’ guardrails<\/p>\n
Mr Hodge told the court Woolworths had changed the way they implemented their “Prices Dropped” policy at the beginning of 2022 because they were trying to put more products onto the popular promotional program.<\/p>\n
He also referenced an email from a pricing manager to staff members which mentioned the introduction of a “new price establishment period of three to six weeks” around this time.<\/p>\n
He alleged at the time Woolworths had “largely removed their guardrails” and were only setting lower shelf prices for some products so they could increase it when it went on the Prices Dropped promotion.<\/p>\n
![\"Shoppers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/343999e7fb1d36cfbcf55d4100dc2bfc.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The consumer watchdog claims Woolworths prevented shoppers from making informed choices during the relevant period. (ABC News: Billy Cooper)<\/p>\n
“That ‘was’ price is only being put in place in order to establish it for the purposes of them being used in the [Prices Dropped] ticket.”<\/p>\n
In response, Mr Yezerski rejected the ACCC’s claims, telling the court his client had provided “ample evidence” of genuine prices.<\/p>\n
Mr Yezerski said the products had been sold in significant quantities at the higher prices before being on a “Prices Dropped” promotion.<\/p>\n
He also said suppliers had requested cost increases in almost all of the cases.<\/p>\n
The hearing will resume on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During day one of a federal court case, the consumer watchdog has alleged Woolworths “contravened” its own internal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[11275,64,63,99,1108,300572,300573,300570,133356,102,300571],"class_list":{"0":"post-621070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-accc","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-court","13":"tag-everyday-low-price","14":"tag-lower-shelf-price","15":"tag-product-pricing","16":"tag-specials","17":"tag-woolworths","18":"tag-woolworths-specials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}